Anti-oxidative and pro-oxidative character study of lutein

In the study, lutein was used as the test material, chemical methods including Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity ( ORAC) , Trolox Equivalent Anti- oxidant Capacity assay ( TEAC) , Folin- Ciocalteu Reaction ( FCR) , 1, 1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazylradical2, 2-Diphenyl-1- ( 2, 4, 6-trinitrophenyl) hydrazyl ( DPPH) were used to evaluate the anti- oxidative character of lutein, and at the same time, the method of evaluating biological macromolecular injury- acellular comet assay was applied in this study.Different concentrations of lutein was demonstrated to have anti-oxidation and pro- oxidation in the ORAC and DPPH; lutein was proved to have antioxidation in TEAC; lutein was indicated to contain less phenolics, and the phenolics was not the main factor of anti-oxidant effect in FCR; high concentration of lutein had damage to DNA in the acellular comet assay.Therefore, lutein showed double effect of anti-oxidant and pro-oxidant in different concentration.